Uprooting believers.

[Golbez]

I've been giving it a little thought lately, and I think part of the problem with a typical atheist debate is it doesn't address the causes for belief or the resistance to change one's mind. To an atheist, the debates that address evolution, lack of evidence, date of the universe, big bang, etc address the crux of the issues. But to a religious person, I think that only addresses the surface of their concerns. It doesn't get to the roots of why a religious person would want to resist the truth.

Imagine a 50 year old who's been religious all his life. Has a wife, kids, family, friends, coworkers/boss, that largely have shared his views, for much, if not all of their lives. What our argument asks of them is not only to look for evidence for his beliefs - a tough intellectual challenge to take on after years/decades of indoctrination, but to accept this totally opposite view in the face of all that social structure. I believe that is great pressure not to believe in the science that invalidates their beliefs. So even though the evidence stands for itself, they will nevertheless find ways to rationalize its inaccuracy.

I think this is massive motivation to cling to their beliefs, and it's one I've seldom, if ever, thought about before the other day. It makes me wonder what other reasons I'm not considering that would pressure them to believe. There may be many.

What I think would be a fantastic atheistic project would be to survey religious people to ask them aside from their belief that it's true, what reasons they believe in religion. Obviously, surveys have inherent dangers with the wording of questions, and the legitimacy of the answers, especially for polemic topics. But I think it would be useful in any case. Hopefully, the survey would produce at least a handful of "secondary" reasons that people have faith, that the atheistic debates don't address. Or maybe hundreds of reasons, which are sorted based on frequency reported or significance or something. Then an atheist think tank could produce a report on how to counter these top 5/10 additional fears. I think these are really the barriers that hold people back, and if you could allay/comfort/address those, they would come tumbling down.

Obviously the survey and the think tank are the processes/institutions I think might be beyond the reach of this forum that I alluded to in the other post. Are there any admins that have connections to such organizations? Or is this purely a conglomeration of generally like-minded individuals? Suppose a survey couldn't be conducted by an organization like PPP, etc. Can you guys think of any other work-arounds? Any other thoughts/suggestion? Cheers.

[FallentoReason]

I think this guy is on the money when it comes to the process of deconversion (it's a series of videos):





I'm also doing a 3 000 word essay for my philosophy unit on belief and how it functions, so I might have some material to chip in later on when I've fully thought through the nature of belief.

[Golbez]

Ahh, this seems like an excellent first-hand testimony. Thanks so much for sharing!

"Deconversion." Perfect terminology.

[FallentoReason]

Ahh, this seems like an excellent first-hand testimony. Thanks so much for sharing!

"Deconversion." Perfect terminology.

I don't know if you used to believe at some stage, but I can "testify" that this guy knows what he's talking about, because he basically outlines exactly what I went through, maybe in a different order, but nonetheless what I went through.

[Violet]

I'm also doing a 3 000 word essay for my philosophy unit on belief and how it functions, so I might have some material to chip in later on when I've fully thought through the nature of belief.

No doubt... you'll probably be wrong about it. But don't worry: just about everybody is

[FallentoReason]

I'm also doing a 3 000 word essay for my philosophy unit on belief and how it functions, so I might have some material to chip in later on when I've fully thought through the nature of belief.

No doubt... you'll probably be wrong about it. But don't worry: just about everybody is

Or maybe right? You can't possibly be wrong in philosophy if you back up your arguments properly. It's interesting stuff, but useless at the same time :p

[Tonus]

I think this guy is on the money when it comes to the process of deconversion (it's a series of videos):

He also does a very nice video summary of the breakdown of the different sources of the OT in Karen Armstrong's A History of God.

As for the OP: Seth McRaney's book You Are Not So Smart does a good job of covering a number of areas of research on how the human mind works. One thing to keep in mind is how our inherent biases can take a subconscious belief and reinforce it against virtually all attempts at reason. A good example are phobias- an irrational fear that we know is irrational, yet we seem helpless to confront. So we make excuses for it, even though we know that the excuses don't explain the phobia.

A person who is terrified of spiders will tell you that they "hate them" because they're creepy, or they're disgusting, or they're poisonous, and so on. It's true that some species are poisonous, but the phobic person is scared witless even by those that they know are harmless. Many people do find them creepy or disgusting, but they don't exhibit the kind of debilitating terror that the phobic person does. Those excuses are simply attempts at dealing with a reaction that the person knows is not rational, yet that he cannot control.

Now, imagine a person has subconsciously accepted that god exists, and apply those same mechanisms to that belief. Presto! A belief that is unshakable because you won't let anyone even try to test it, and which you buttress with every conceivable bias and heuristic that you can pull out of your ear. This is why, for many people, deconversion is a very traumatic experience even when the end result is beneficial.

[The Grand Nudger]

I've been giving it a little thought lately, and I think part of the problem with a typical atheist debate is it doesn't address the causes for belief or the resistance to change one's mind. To an atheist, the debates that address evolution, lack of evidence, date of the universe, big bang, etc address the crux of the issues. But to a religious person, I think that only addresses the surface of their concerns. It doesn't get to the roots of why a religious person would want to resist the truth. Imagine a 50 year old who's been religious all his life. Has a wife, kids, family, friends, coworkers/boss, that largely have shared his views, for much, if not all of their lives. What our argument asks of them is not only to look for evidence for his beliefs - a tough intellectual challenge to take on after years/decades of indoctrination, but to accept this totally opposite view in the face of all that social structure. I believe that is great pressure not to believe in the science that invalidates their beliefs. So even though the evidence stands for itself, they will nevertheless find ways to rationalize its inaccuracy.

Imagine, also, the internal conflict if one suspected that not only were they taken for a ride, they took others for a ride as well...their friends - their loved ones. Not only a victim but also a willing accomplice and perpetrator. The stage has been very well set for dissonance on this count.

I think this is massive motivation to cling to their beliefs, and it's one I've seldom, if ever, thought about before the other day. It makes me wonder what other reasons I'm not considering that would pressure them to believe. There may be many.

Well, we tend to hold on to what we've got, it;s been a pretty useful tendency. Now, what we've got may not actually be working, or it may be neutral - sitting there doing nothing while we erroneously think that it;s helped somehow. This would be an artifact of heuristics. We do have a tendency to think that if we percieve something as "working" that this is indicative of how correct the proposition is - not that this is a problem in and of itself- but failing to explore the proposition further seems to be. Even now, when we possess the knowledge required to come to this realization - we can still very easily continue to go with what we have, what "works".

What I think would be a fantastic atheistic project would be to survey religious people to ask them aside from their belief that it's true, what reasons they believe in religion. Obviously, surveys have inherent dangers with the wording of questions, and the legitimacy of the answers, especially for polemic topics. But I think it would be useful in any case. Hopefully, the survey would produce at least a handful of "secondary" reasons that people have faith, that the atheistic debates don't address. Or maybe hundreds of reasons, which are sorted based on frequency reported or significance or something. Then an atheist think tank could produce a report on how to counter these top 5/10 additional fears. I think these are really the barriers that hold people back, and if you could allay/comfort/address those, they would come tumbling down.

We already see this sort of thing day in and day out on the forums. The faithful often appear to be perplexed at how we manage not to go around slitting throats and raping adolescents. Asking how something could come from nothing - etc.

[Golbez]

Yes, the forums are a great medium to ask such questions of the non-believers. I was kind of thinking like formulating a sort of thorough and rigorous explanation to show how religious people can be walked down from their position without hurting themselves (too much). I've been watching that Evid3nc3 series pretty much nonstop and he's basically done the work I was thinking of. Meticulously going point by point how he had been led to believe what he believes, and why each point had inherent flaws, and how those points could be dismantled. Glorious series. I was thinking something of that on a scholastic level, I guess.

[The Grand Nudger]

Well, one of those things about religion, is that it's amorphous. You could spend as much time as you like putting together a bullet point list but it will be for naught. Witness our resident believers, on the one hand very well aware of the extensive and dramatic changes their religion has undergone - but on the other hand - unaware of this very awareness..lol. It's still the same, nothings changed, etc etc etc. In their minds, it seems, they are worshipping the same god that those two thousand years prior worshipped. They've actually managed to paint their jesus down through time for example. It's impressive.